United states atomic energy commission

One thing already seems clear in the Trump era: The world will not turn out to be the American president’s playground. His ultra-unilateralist, rejectionist policies on trade, the Iran denuclearization agreement, the costs of defense, and climate change are already creating an incipient anti-Trump movement globally (and in the United States as well). To a remarkable degree, the countries he has targeted are banding together to oppose him and his policies. That still inchoate but gathering opposition assures that, whatever Donald Trump’s view of America may be, it is no longer – in the phrase coined 20 years ago by then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright – the “indispensable nation.” The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox Abroad or even at home, with Trump facing increasingly strong headwinds on climate change at the state and local level, we’re entering a new world order on the heels of the … [Read more...] about Can Donald Trump unite the world (against himself)?

Silicon Valley’s biggest names are tripping over themselves to forsake their governing mottos. “Don’t be evil” no longer works for Google now that the biggest search engine is embracing authoritarian, web-controlling China. Facebook’s “bringing the world closer together” ethos has been eclipsed by bots, trolls and the vitriol dividing humankind being amplified over its platform. The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox The “one tiny drop changes everything” lie spun by Theranos only had the blood-testing startup’s founder indicted. Petrodollars to fund clean energy? Now Tesla is imperiling its mission “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Elon Musk is doing so by turning to – wait for it – Saudi Arabia for cash. The spectacle of a man out to hasten the demise of fossil fuels by courting billions of petrodollars takes … [Read more...] about Leading American, Japanese clean-energy tycoons court petrodollars

TOKYO: Japan pledged to reduce its controversial stocks of plutonium, the world's biggest inventory of the highly toxic material held by a non-nuclear armed state, following pressure from the United States, China and other countries.The government did not outline by how much and when it will cut the stockpiles of plutonium it holds. Japan shut down most of its reactors that can use the material as fuel after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011.Japan is the only nation without atomic weapons to have significant amounts of plutonium. This has led to security concerns from China and other neighbouring countries.Japan held 47 tonnes of plutonium as of the end of 2017, including 21 tonnes stored in preprocessing facilities in Britain and 15 tonnes in France, enough to make thousands of atomic bombs.Local media reported in June that the U.S. government had asked Japan to trim its stockpiles ahead of an extension this month of a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement."Japan will reduce … [Read more...] about Japan pledges to cut plutonium stockpile amid growing concern by neighbours

TOKYO: Japan has amassed enough plutonium to make 6,000 atomic bombs as part of a programme to fuel its nuclear plants, but concern is growing that the stockpile is vulnerable to terrorists and natural disasters.Japan has long been the world's only non-nuclear-armed country with a programme to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from its power plants into plutonium.On Tuesday (Jul 17), a decades-old deal with the United States which allows Japan to reprocess plutonium was renewed, but the pact can be terminated by either side with just six months' notice.Plutonium reprocessing is meant to create a new and emissions-free fuel source for resource-poor Japan, but the size of its stockpile has started to attract criticism, even from allies.Plutonium can be used to create nuclear weapons. Although Japan has vowed the material would never be used for military purposes, it has now amassed vastly more plutonium than it can use, since many of its nuclear plants are still offline after the 2011 … [Read more...] about Japan’s growing plutonium stockpile fuels fears

On May 8, President Donald Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from a 2015 agreement between six major nations and Iran – called the “Iran deal” for short – aimed at ensuring that Iran wouldn’t develop a nuclear weapon, in exchange for lifting sanctions that for 12 years had stifled that country’s economic growth. Trump’s action has been met with dismay among America’s allies in Europe and Asia and with scathing criticism and opprobrium in the US political circles and the liberal press. It has also raised speculations about the withdrawal’s negative impact on the forthcoming meeting between Trump and North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, to discuss the “denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula. Describing the agreement – pushed by his predecessor, Barack Obama – as “a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever have been made,” Trump warned that “any nation that … [Read more...] about US withdrawal from Iran nuke deal’s ill consequences